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MontLake – Best UCITS Liquid Alternatives Platform

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The firm behind this year’s best UCITS liquid alternatives platform, ML Capital, is undergoing a rebrand and as of March 2019 will be known as MontLake. “After extensive research, we recognised that the marketplace knows the company more prominently as MontLake through our award-winning platform, rather than as ML Capital. After much deliberation, we have decided to change our name,” says Cyril Delamare, CEO of MontLake.

This year the firm celebrates its tenth anniversary and Delamare (pictured) says it was the opportune time to revert to the firm’s original name – MontLake.

Last year was one of growth for MontLake. Assets under management grew to USD7.5 billion and the firm strengthened its teams in Dublin and London and also partnered with a number of large fund managers as management company or operator of their white labelled fund structures.

Delamare says the raison d’être of the firm is to support managers in structuring the right fund to have success in distribution through its two main business lines – Fund Solutions and Investment Solutions. The Fund Solutions team launches and operates fund structures on behalf of fund managers, allowing them to focus on their investment strategy. MontLake actively operates funds for 75 firms. The open architecture nature of the Fund Solutions business means there is no capacity to the fund managers we can help.

Within Investment Solutions, MontLake efforts are concentrated to a narrow list of some of the industry best performing managers. This is the firm’s distribution arm, where a team of experienced individuals work to critically understand the needs of investors with the aim of raising money from institutional investors in high quality investment products. Within this part of the business, MontLake is more selective and chooses to distribute between five and seven funds at any one time.

“The combination of fund structuring and operational expertise, alongside an extremely deep understanding of what investors are looking for and what they invest in put us in a unique position in the market place,” Delamare explains. “We are very client-focused and aim to match what investors are looking for with exceptional fund structures and the right performing managers.”

Looking ahead into 2019, Delamare says from a Fund Solutions point of view, the firm sees the opportunity to continue to strengthen its presence in Ireland whilst further developing our Luxembourg business. Here, it will increase the presence of its platform business and standalone white labelled management company funds.

On the Investment Solutions side, the firm’s outlook is bullish on UCITS and alternative UCITS funds ability to deliver strong returns in 2019. “We have a very healthy suite of funds which are being distributed to our European clientele combined with some exciting new launches in the pipeline and demand remains very high. We expect to see significant growth in alternative fixed income, short term CTA strategies and low net equity managers, running both US and European strategies,” says Delamare.

Further Delamare explains the coming year is about putting MontLake out in the industry as a corporate name by working on the rebrand throughout March. The firm also aims to continue along its growth path. “We want to scale up and acquire new clients. At the same time, we will continue to service our existing clients with the highest quality standards they expect from us,” he says.

On winning this year’s award Delamare says, “It’s a reinforcement of our positioning as a leader in the platform operating world. We look forward to continue winning such awards for the next few years as we strive to improve our services and our reach to new clients.” 

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